Part 40 (2/2)
The words, spoken in the Teacher's deep and musical voice, rang out in the tented room like a trumpet.
The three conspirators were struck by them as if by some terrible crus.h.i.+ng physical force.
With dilated eyes and faces, which were scarcely human in their terror, they crouched before the terrible apparition.
In that moment all remembrance of what they had just learnt from the newspaper was blotted from their minds; they only thought that here was one veritably risen from the dead, or come in spirit to denounce them.
The woman was the first to succ.u.mb. With a low, whimpering moan she fell in a tumbled heap upon the floor. Neither the Jew nor the younger man moved a finger to help her. They crouched trembling against the opposite wall, and stared at the tall figure of the man they had tried to murder.
Joseph stood looking upon them. His face was no index whatever to his thoughts. In whatever spirit he had come they could define nothing of it from his face, though the words which he had uttered as he appeared from behind the hangings rang in their ears with a deep and ironical mockery as if the bell of doom was tolling for them.
Once more Joseph raised his hands.
”Peace be unto you,” he said again, as if blessing them. And then he asked very gravely and calmly: ”Why are you afraid of me?”
Again there was silence, until at last Levison, the Jew, with a tremendous and heroic effort of self-control, pulled himself a little together and essayed to speak.
”Do not prolong this scene, sir,” he said, in a cracked, dry voice, which seemed to come from a vast distance. ”Have your men in at once and take us away. It will be better so. You have won the game, and we must pay the penalty. I suppose you have captured the men who made the attempt upon your life, and”--here Levison remembered, with an added throb of horror, how another had suffered in place of his intended victim--”and who, unfortunately, killed another person in mistake for you. So be it. We are ready to go.”
The sound of the Jew's voice speaking thus, and calm with all the hideous calmness of defeat and utter despair, had roused Lord Ballina's sinking consciousness. As Levison concluded, the young man fell upon his knees and almost crawled to the feet of the Master.
”It's all lies,” he gasped--”it's all lies, sir! I don't know what he is talking about, with his murders and things. I know nothing whatever about it all. I wasn't in it. I a.s.sure you I'd nothing whatever to do with it. It was he who did it all.”
The livid young wretch extended a shaking hand of cowardly accusation, and pointed it at his whilom friend.
Joseph looked down to the creature at his feet with a blazing scorn in his eyes, and as he did so the Jew, who was still leaning upon the opposite wall, as if too physically weak to move, broke in upon the end of Lord Ballina's quavering exculpation.
”It's quite true, sir,” he said to Joseph, though even in the hour of his own agony the man's bitter contempt for the coward crept into his voice and chilled it. ”It is perfectly true, this young--er--gentleman, Lord Ballina, knew nothing of the matters of which you speak. Nor can he be connected with them in any way.”
”Friend,” said Joseph, very calmly, lifting his eyes from the thing that crouched upon the floor below him--”friend, of what matters have I spoken?”
Levison looked steadily at him. A puzzled expression crossed his terror-stricken face for a moment, and then left it as before.
”Why quibble about words,” he said, ”at such a time as this? I beg you, sir, to call in your detectives, and have me taken away at once. I, and I only, am responsible for the attempt upon your life.”
Here there came a sudden and even more dramatic interruption than before. From the heap of s.h.i.+mmering draperies upon the floor by the couch, which covered the swooning body of the actress, a head suddenly protruded. It was like the head of a serpent coming slowly into view, with flas.h.i.+ng eyes of enmity and hate.
Mimi Addington rose with a slow and sinuous movement, a movement which, if she could have reproduced it in ordinary life, and showed it upon the stage, would, perhaps, have lifted her to the rank of the greatest tragedy actress of this or any other era.
The movement was irresistible, like the slow, gliding erection of a serpent. The head oscillated a little in front of the body, with a curiously reptilian movement. The eyes were fixed in their steady and unflinching glare of hate.
Levison stared, trembling, at the sudden and hideous apparition. All the beauty had faded from the face. It was as the face of one lost and doomed, the face of some malignant spirit from the very depths of despair.
Then a hollow, hissing voice filled the place.
”They are both wrong,” said the voice; ”they are both wrong. It was I who did this thing. I myself and no other. Whatever you may be, man or spirit, I care not. It was I who set the men on to kill you, and the death that you were to die was all too easy for you. I hate you with a hatred for which there are no words. I would that I could inflict upon you a death lasting many days of torture, and do it with my hands. And then I would dance upon your grave. I hate you as woman never hated man before. Before all the world you spurned me and showed me as I am. You made me a laughing-stock to London, and a shame in the eyes of all men.”
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